What we have now is the child prodigy inching toward middle age, Tiger Woods closing in - can it be? - on the Big Four-oh-oh-oh-oh, and in the process living some remarkable similarities to the plight of your typical modern man. For example:
Running short of birthday cake candles? Check, need 36 of them next month.
Divorced? And how.
Shared children? Sadly, yes.
Body beginning to betray you? Uh-huh. Four knee surgeries, plus stints with canes, crutches, and walking boots.
Problems in the workplace? 'Fraid so. Haven't sealed a major deal since June of '08.
Now, he picks his way through the wreckage while the rest of us ponder how far, exactly, is his fall from grace.
This is the shocker: Tiger Woods is 51st in the world rankings.
Can't be. From 1 to 51? What, the parachute didn't deploy, and the emergency one is a mess of snarled tangles?
You keep thinking that any minute now he will morph back into Tiger, the Tiger before whom the rest of the field would genuflect, and he would whisper to himself, à la Larry Bird and the three-point competition: "Which one of you SOBs is playing for second?"
He has his believers still, none more staunch than Fred Couples, who staked his reputation and judgment on Tiger by making him one of two captain's picks for last week's President's Cup, a poor
's version of the Ryder Cup. Not only did Couples defy public and popular opinion, he announced his selection a full month before it was required, just in case you doubted how he felt about Tiger.
"He's still Tiger Woods," Couples said. "He's still a presence."
